Citizens United targets McAuliffe

The conservative group Citizens United has produced a scathing film about former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and plans to spend six figures promoting it amid McAuliffe’s campaign for governor of Virginia, the group’s leadership told POLITICO.

The negative documentary, titled “ Fast Terry,” will debut online in the coming weeks. The substance of the film is focused on two episodes in McAuliffe’s business career that Republicans have attacked: his leadership at the auto startup GreenTech and his planned investment in a biofuels venture, Franklin Pellets.

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According to published reports, both enterprises have fallen well short of initially high expectations; Citizens United intends to put those stories in front of Virginia voters. A spokesman for the group said it will initially spend about $350,000 on television and Internet ads promoting the movie.

Citizens United president David Bossie said the focus of the documentary is “Terry McAuliffe and his character, seen through his business dealings.”

“Terry McAuliffe is the definition of crony capitalism,” said Bossie, who also insisted that the film is not an explicitly political hit job: “We don’t talk about the governor’s race in the film. We don’t try to advocate the election or defeat of Terry McAuliffe in the film. We don’t mention Ken Cuccinelli’s name, nor that Terry McAuliffe is a candidate for governor.”

The point of the documentary, Bossie said, is to highlight the accounts of “the real people who have been negatively impacted by Terry McAuliffe.”

In a teaser trailer that will be unveiled Wednesday night, the group shows images of a GreenTech sign in Tunica, Miss., and plays voice-overs of people speaking critically about the company. One man’s voice says: “I don’t know much about Terry, but what I have read about him, I don’t really care for him.”

The McAuliffe campaign scoffed at the planned attack from Citizens United, pointing out that an affiliate group – called the Presidential Coalition LLC – has donated heavily to his Republican opponent over the years, including during the current race.

“It’s no surprise that a fringe group that convinced Rick Perry to support outlawing abortions even in the case of rape or incest would add to the more than $100,000 they’ve already contributed to Ken Cuccinelli by launching false attacks on Terry’s record,” McAuliffe spokesman Josh Schwerin said, alluding to another Citizens United film that reportedly convinced the Texas governor to shift his views on abortion to the right.

The last few weeks have marked a sharp escalation in Virginia’s paid-media war: Democrats have aired ads blasting Cuccinelli for his views on the Violence Against Women Act, Social Security and gas royalties in rural Virginia, while the Republican Governors Association began ads Wednesday accusing McAuliffe of investing in China, rather than the United States, through his involvement with GreenTech.

Now that the air war in Virginia has been fully engaged, it is unlikely that it will abate before Election Day in November.